Since 1996, French metallers Gojira have slowly but assuredly grown to a stature that’s in keeping with their name. Yet despite being at their commercial peak their latest album is loaded with progressive peculiarities and extroverted moments. So now we have to ask: How prog are Gojira?

Words: Phil Weller

          

In 2021, Gojira find themselves with the world at their feet. Releasing their seventh album, Fortitude, on the back 2016’s Magma – their best-selling record to date – and the host of festival headline slots they earned as a result, they have become one of the biggest metal bands on the planet. Yet they haven’t found their success commercialising their metallic stomp. Instead, Gojira are still as weird, experimental and avant-garde as ever.

“We’re not blind to our success. We want to be the next big metal band,” says drummer Mario Duplantier. “In Gojira, we’re very attracted to the catchiness of metal, but we also love the experimental aspect of our music. So now we have this double approach because we want to make the step up and become a bigger band, but we don’t want to lose who we are.

“The most challenging part of being [in] a band for 25 years is finding that fragile and very small area where we all agree on a direction. I knew the other members of the band wanted something very melodic but I wanted to bring some of the more extreme elements back after Magma. In the end, the four of us really enjoyed putting all those dynamics into these songs.”

“We grew up with the album Crises from Mike Oldfield. It was a huge part of our musical identity, not just for ourselves but also for Gojira.”

Gojira’s Fortitudeis reviewed on page 98.

The band’s latest album balances on the precipice between their crushing, far out early work and their matured and more accessible contemporary sound. There’s a yin and yang aspect at play, where jagged prog metal riffs and rhythms interchange with stadium band hooks and moments of beautiful introspection. It’s no mean feat, but this balancing act has been tipping them towards mastered equilibrium since they first announced themselves onto the world.